new toy - Arisaka sporter

A buddy said he was going to send me an old Arisaka. It had been sporterized, needed some work, but "free is a quality overcoming many faults." In due course a box showed up.

I'd thought about the things I could do with an Arisaka action, but when I opened the box, what came out as a *nice* rifle. Someone had polished all the machining marks off and given it a beautiful almost-block blue job and had inletted it into a nice aftermarket sporter stock. The bore is perfect. The muzzle really needs to be recrowned, but other than that, there's nothing much to do.

My plans for rebarreling it to .50 Beowulf got trashed about two seconds after it came out of the box. I'd done it in view of my wife, who claimed half-interest in the rifle, and promptly forbade any such thing. I was to order some new 7.7 brass immediately. So I did, along with a die set, bullet mould, and some other odds and ends. Nothing wrong with 7.7x58...

This should go nicely with my sporterized P-17, once I figure out how to do a nice job of marking the barrel as ".30 Whelen." I'd originally planned to rebarrel it in .300 H&H, then rechamber it in .30 Gibbs (which is what you get if you "Ackley Improve" an Ackley Improved...), then decided to leave it in its original chambering.

the 7.7 type 99 Arisaka is a fine rifle. I'm contenplating ordering a Boyd's stock for one of my non matching restored T99. there are also scout scope mounts out therefor them as well. Rumor is that the Arisaka action is stronger than a 98 mauser.

P.O. Ackley felt it was stronger than a Mauser... but I'm not going to abuse this one. Just standard 7.7 reloads.

Considering how many rifles I have with .311 bores, I really need to look for a "bump die" to swage jacketed .308 bullets bigger. .311 bullets have gone stupid expensive in the last few years, and I have 7.65x53, 7.62x54R, .303 British, and now 7.7 Arisaka to feed now. Oh, and I almost forgot the AKs, which also shoot .311s...